SHOCK TATICS



The Toys of Peace and Other Papers

SHOCK TACTICS

Saki

On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a green-painted chair in Kensington Gardens, staring listlessly at an uninteresting stretch of park landscape that blossomed suddenly into tropical radiance as an expected figure appeared in the middle distance.

“Hullo, Bertie!” she exclaimed sedately, when the figure arrived at the painted chair that was the nearest neighbour to her own, and dropped into it eagerly, yet with a certain due regard for the set of its trousers; “hasn’t it been a perfect spring afternoon?”

The statement was a distinct untruth as far as Ella’s own feelings were concerned; until the arrival of Bertie the afternoon had been anything but perfect.

Bertie made a suitable reply, in which a questioning note seemed to hover.

“Thank you ever so much for those lovely handkerchiefs,” said Ella, answering the unspoken question; “they were just what I’ve been wanting.  There’s only one thing spoilt my pleasure in your gift,” she added, with a pout.

“What was that?” asked Bertie anxiously, fearful that perhaps he had chosen a size of handkerchief that was not within the correct feminine limit.

“I should have liked to have written and thanked you for them as soon as I got them,” said Ella, and Bertie’s sky clouded at once.

“You know what mother is,” he protested; “she opens all my letters, and if she found I’d been giving presents to any one there’d have been something to talk about for the next fortnight.”

“Surely, at the age of twenty—” began Ella.

“I’m not twenty till September,” interrupted Bertie.

“At the age of nineteen years and eight months,” persisted Ella, “you might be allowed to keep your correspondence private to yourself.”

“I ought to be, but things aren’t always what they ought to be.  Mother opens every letter that comes into the house, whoever it’s for.  My sisters and I have made rows about it time and again, but she goes on doing it.”

“I’d find some way to stop her if I were in your place,” said Ella valiantly, and Bertie felt that the glamour of his anxiously deliberated present had faded away in the disagreeable restriction that hedged round its acknowledgment.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Bertie’s friend Clovis when they met that evening at the swimming-bath.

“Why do you ask?” said Bertie.

“When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a swimming-bath,” said Clovis, “it’s especially noticeable from the fact that you’re wearing very little else.  Didn’t she like the handkerchiefs?”

Bertie explained the situation.

“It is rather galling, you know,” he added, “when a girl has a lot of things she wants to write to you and can’t send a letter except by some roundabout, underhand way.”

“One never realises one’s blessings while one enjoys them,” said Clovis; “now I have to spend a considerable amount of ingenuity inventing excuses for not having written to people.”

“It’s not a joking matter,” said Bertie resentfully: “you wouldn’t find it funny if your mother opened all your letters.”

“The funny thing to me is that you should let her do it.”

“I can’t stop it.  I’ve argued about it—”

“You haven’t used the right kind of argument, I expect.  Now, if every time one of your letters was opened you lay on your back on the dining-table during dinner and had a fit, or roused the entire family in the middle of the night to hear you recite one of Blake’s ‘Poems of Innocence,’ you would get a far more respectful hearing for future protests.  People yield more consideration to a mutilated mealtime or a broken night’s rest, than ever they would to a broken heart.”

“Oh, dry up,” said Bertie crossly, inconsistently splashing Clovis from head to foot as he plunged into the water.

It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that a letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his home, and thence into the hands of his mother.  Mrs. Heasant was one of those empty-minded individuals to whom other people’s affairs are perpetually interesting.  The more private they are intended to be the more acute is the interest they arouse.  She would have opened this particular letter in any case; the fact that it was marked “private,” and diffused a delicate but penetrating aroma merely caused her to open it with headlong haste rather than matter-of-course deliberation.  The harvest of sensation that rewarded her was beyond all expectations.

“Bertie, carissimo,” it began, “I wonder if you will have the nerve to do it: it will take some nerve, too.  Don’t forget the jewels.  They are a detail, but details interest me.

“Yours as ever, Clotilde.”

“Your mother must not know of my existence.  If questioned swear you never heard of me.”

For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie’s correspondence diligently for traces of possible dissipation or youthful entanglements, and at last the suspicions that had stimulated her inquisitorial zeal were justified by this one splendid haul.  That any one wearing the exotic name “Clotilde” should write to Bertie under the incriminating announcement “as ever” was sufficiently electrifying, without the astounding allusion to the jewels.  Mrs. Heasant could recall novels and dramas wherein jewels played an exciting and commanding role, and here, under her own roof, before her very eyes as it were, her own son was carrying on an intrigue in which jewels were merely an interesting detail.  Bertie was not due home for another hour, but his sisters were available for the immediate unburdening of a scandal-laden mind.

“Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress,” she screamed; “her name is Clotilde,” she added, as if she thought they had better know the worst at once.  There are occasions when more harm than good is done by shielding young girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable realities of life.

By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible and improbable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limited themselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather than wicked.

“Who is Clotilde?” was the question that confronted Bertie almost before he had got into the hall.  His denial of any knowledge of such a person was met with an outburst of bitter laughter.

“How well you have learned your lesson!” exclaimed Mrs. Heasant.  But satire gave way to furious indignation when she realised that Bertie did not intend to throw any further light on her discovery.

“You shan’t have any dinner till you’ve confessed everything,” she stormed.

Bertie’s reply took the form of hastily collecting material for an impromptu banquet from the larder and locking himself into his bedroom.  His mother made frequent visits to the locked door and shouted a succession of interrogations with the persistence of one who thinks that if you ask a question often enough an answer will eventually result.  Bertie did nothing to encourage the supposition.  An hour had passed in fruitless one-sided palaver when another letter addressed to Bertie and marked “private” made its appearance in the letter-box.  Mrs. Heasant pounced on it with the enthusiasm of a cat that has missed its mouse and to whom a second has been unexpectedly vouchsafed.  If she hoped for further disclosures assuredly she was not disappointed.

“So you have really done it!” the letter abruptly commenced; “Poor Dagmar.  Now she is done for I almost pity her.  You did it very well, you wicked boy, the servants all think it was suicide, and there will be no fuss.  Better not touch the jewels till after the inquest.

“Clotilde.”

Anything that Mrs. Heasant had previously done in the way of outcry was easily surpassed as she raced upstairs and beat frantically at her son’s door.

“Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?”

“It’s Dagmar now, is it?” he snapped; “it will be Geraldine next.”

“That it should come to this, after all my efforts to keep you at home of an evening,” sobbed Mrs. Heasant; “it’s no use you trying to hide things from me; Clotilde’s letter betrays everything.”

“Does it betray who she is?” asked Bertie; “I’ve heard so much about her, I should like to know something about her home-life.  Seriously, if you go on like this I shall fetch a doctor; I’ve often enough been preached at about nothing, but I’ve never had an imaginary harem dragged into the discussion.”

“Are these letters imaginary?” screamed Mrs. Heasant; “what about the jewels, and Dagmar, and the theory of suicide?”

No solution of these problems was forthcoming through the bedroom door, but the last post of the evening produced another letter for Bertie, and its contents brought Mrs. Heasant that enlightenment which had already dawned on her son.

“Dear Bertie,” it ran; “I hope I haven’t distracted your brain with the spoof letters I’ve been sending in the name of a fictitious Clotilde.  You told me the other day that the servants, or somebody at your home, tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give any one that opened them something exciting to read.  The shock might do them good.

“Yours,

“Clovis Sangrail.”

Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him.  It was not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax.  In a chastened mood she rapped once more at Bertie’s door.

“A letter from Mr. Sangrail.  It’s all been a stupid hoax.  He wrote those other letters.  Why, where are you going?”

Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and overcoat.

“I’m going for a doctor to come and see if anything’s the matter with you.  Of course it was all a hoax, but no person in his right mind could have believed all that rubbish about murder and suicide and jewels.  You’ve been making enough noise to bring the house down for the last hour or two.”

“But what was I to think of those letters?” whimpered Mrs. Heasant.

“I should have known what to think of them,” said Bertie; “if you choose to excite yourself over other people’s correspondence it’s your own fault.  Anyhow, I’m going for a doctor.”

It was Bertie’s great opportunity, and he knew it.  His mother was conscious of the fact that she would look rather ridiculous if the story got about.  She was willing to pay hush-money.

“I’ll never open your letters again,” she promised.  And Clovis has no more devoted slave than Bertie Heasant.

1. There are 10 hyphenated words in the story. Find them and decide which of them are nouns and which of them adjectives.

2. Scan the text for words ending in –ly and put them in the correct column of the table below according to their grammatical use.

|ADVERB OF MANNER |ADJECTIVE |NOUN |

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3. Most of the adverbs in the story are adverbs of manner. Which two aren’t and what kind of adverbs are they?

4. Which word has “finally” and “ultimately” for synonyms?

5. Which one has the same form as a verb?

6. Which one is also an adverb?

Only: adjective or adverb?

In written English, “only” usually goes immediately before the word it qualifies. In spoken English, where it goes doesn’t really matter, as long as you use stress to show what it qualifies.

“Only” is an adjective when there is no other person or thing involved in a particular situation.

I was the only spectator in the tennis court.

The only thing he wasn’t charged with was bribery.

An only child has no siblings.

“Only” is an adverb when you want to say something is true, appropriate or necessary and everything else isn’t.

Only a fair trial could lead to his acquittal.

It’s true that I lied, but I only meant to help.

Or to introduce something that must happen before the main event does.

You only get paid once you’ve done your job (You get paid if you do your job).

Also when you want to correct a wrong idea someone may have.

Don’t blame me. I’m only the middleman (I’m just the middleman).

And to indicate a limited amount of something or a short period of time.

Take only one pill before you go to bed (Take just one pill before yo go to bed).

I’ve only recently started working here (I’ve just started working here).

Only as an adverb is used after “can/could” to emphasise that to do anything other than the rather inadequate or limited action that is mentioned is or would have been impossible.

I could only remain silent and wait till he stopped ranting and raving against the government.

I can only guess what she may be up to.

We also use it as an adverb before the full infinitive to introduce a rather upsetting event event which takes place immediately after the first we have mentioned.

He left the building in a hurry, only to find his car had been towed away.

The same idea of undesirability or misfortune is present when used before verb tenses.

Stirring things up will only cause more trouble.

7. “Especially” (37) and “specially”—which doesn’t appear in the text—are both adverbs and are often confused. Which one means “particularly; above all” and which one “especifically”? Write two sentences, one with each adverb, to show the difference in use.

8. Complete the word family of the adverb “hastily” (99). One of its members appears in the text.

|ADVERB |VERB |ADJECTIVE |NOUN |

|Hastily (99) | | | |

9. Can you complete the following idiomatic expressions with one of the words above? What do they mean?

__________ makes waste.

More __________, less speed!

Make __________!

10. “Rouse(d)” (52) and “arouse” (63) have the same vowel sound [aʊ], are both transitive, and are similar in meaning. Which of them means “to waken” and which one “to excite; to cause to become active” in Saki’s story?

11. “Thence” (60) and “wherein” (80) are two extremely formal words, the first one an adverb, the second—which is not only formal, but also literary and old-fashioned—an adverb and conjunction. Complete the following definitions with one or the other.

__________ is used to say that something changes from one state or condition to another.

__________ means from a particular place, especially when you are giving directions about how to get somewhere.

__________ means in which part or respect.

__________ means in which place or thing.

12. Now complete the examples below with either of them.

• Adequate housing is possible in developed, mixed economies __________ the interests of the poor have prevailed.

• I ran straight up to Columbia County, then turned East, came down the Harlem Valley and __________ home.

• It is difficult to know wherein Mr Ritchie hoped to find salvation for his country.

• Our first lesson in Physics dealt with the conversion of sunlight into heat and __________ into electricity.

• The mosaics were sent to Munich, and __________ to Geneva.

• There’s a riding school nearby __________ we could learn the art of horsemanship.

• __________ lies the truth?

13. “Fade(d) away” (31)—or more commonly “fade—and “carry(ing) on” (82) are two phrasal verbs. Which one means “have an affair” and which one “to disappear or die gradually”?

14. Now put the following definitions under one heading or the other.

• “lose brightness, colour, strength, freshness,etc.”

• “continue doing something”

• “conduct an activity”

• “make a fuss over something”

|FADE (AWAY) |CARRY ON |

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15. Fill in the gaps below with the correct verb form of either “fade” or “carry on”.

• The consulate will __________ a political dialogue with Indonesia

• Every week a fresh scandal emerges about ministers __________ with film actresses and call girls.

• Flowers soon __________ when they have been cut.

• Her bravery has given him the will to __________ with his life and his work.

• He was yelling and screaming and __________ about some stupid television series.

• Hopes of a peace settlement are now __________.

• These curtains were once bright green but but the sun has __________ them.

• The shapes __________ into the night.

16. In the third sentence of the preceding exercise, we could also have used the verb “wither” to complete the sentence. When a flower or a plant “withers” it dries up, and dies. Can you find its antonym in Saki’s story?

17. There is another verb in the text that has to do with gardening, but in the context of the story is used as “to be full of, or surrounded by, in a way that causes difficulty”. Can you find it? Do you know of any other meaning it may have?

18. Now find another which has to do with agriculture and can mean either “the act/time of gathering the crops,” “the size/quality of the crops that have been gathered,” or “the results of past work or action”. In which sense is it used in the context of the story?

19. Find the verb in the text that corresponds to this road sign.

[pic]

20. Find two compound adjectives, one meaning “dishonest, especially secretly” and the other “indirect, not in the shortest possible way”. Which one means what?

21. Which one could also be a noun meaning “traffic circle,” for which this road sign stands for?

[pic]

22. To be “in the toils” of someone is to be firmly trapped by him. Can you think of an expression which, being similar to this one, is far less literary? Clue: The expression bears a word in it after which one of the three pedals in a car is named.

23. What does “ingenuity” (44) mean? “Candour, naivety” or “a skill at working out how to achieve things/ invent new things”?

24. “Row(s)” (29) and “row” are homonyms, that is, they have the same spelling but are pronounced differently and have a different meaning too. What does “row(s)” (29) in the text mean and what does “row” mean in the following sentence? I sat on the front row because I’d forgotten my eyeglasses. How do you pronounce these words? Write down their phonemic transcription.

25. Substitute the underlined words in the sentence for a word with the same meaning you will find in Saki’s “Shock Tactics” and an article. I see my parents about once every two weeks.

26. “Diffuse(d)” (65) [dɪˈfjuːz] and “defuse” [d iːˈfjuːz] can be easily confused on account of their rather similar pronunciation. However, one means “to remove the fuse from something explosive to prevent an explosion; to make less dangerous or harmful” and the other means “to cause to spread out freely in all directions, to disperse”. Which is which?

27. Complete the sentences with the correct form of either of the verbs above.

• As agriculture developed, was it the ideas of agriculture that __________ across Europe? Or the people that moved with their ideas?

• __________ a light also reduces its power.

• Officials will hold four days of talks aimed at __________ tensions over trade.

• Over time, however, the technology is __________ and adopted by other countries.

• Police administrators credited the organization with helping __________ potentially violent situations...

• Police have __________ a bomb found in a building in London.

• The sun slid behind trees, its last light __________ by wintry branches.

28. Match the words and their synonyms.

|Astounding (79) | |Amazing |

|Dry up (57) | |Annoying |

|Entanglements (75) | |Area |

|Fit (52) | |Be quiet |

|Galling (40) | |Condition |

|Gloom (36) | |Convulsion |

|Haul (77) | |Dive |

|Headlong (66) | |Enthusiasm |

|Hover (11) | |Float |

|Pout (15) | |Impetuous |

|Plunged (58) | |Mess |

|Set (8) | |Pessimism |

|Stretch (2) | |Pull |

|Zeal (76) | |Sulk |

29. “Have the nerve” (line 68) and “take some nerve” (line 69) are two expressions. Match the following expressions with “nerve” to their meanings:

1. Have the nerve

2. Strain every nerve

3. Take some nerve/lose one’s nerve

4. Touch/hit/strike a raw nerve

a. Courage, determination, and self-control

b. Disrespectful rudeness, cheek, effrontery

c. Try as hard as possible

d. Upset someone by mentioning a subject that embarrasses him

30. Complete the following sentences with one of the expressions above.

a. He’s the dirtiest man I know and he __________ to tell me my shoes needed cleaning!

b. I know that in talking about suicide, I may have __________.

c. I wanted to tell her exactly what I thought, but I __________.

d. He __________ to be appointed CEO of his company.

31. What does “further” mean in line 97? Could it be written with an “a” insteand of a “u” in this case?

32. “Do someone in” is slang for “to kill or murder”, as in They did her in with an axe! Can you find another phrasal verb with the same meaning in Saki’s story?

33. Due has different meanings in “with a certain due regard for the set of his trousers” (line 7) and in “Bertie was not due home for another hour” (line 83). Which “due” means “proper, correct, or suitable” and which one means “expected or supposed to happen or arrive”?

Due to / Because of

“Due to” describes nouns or pronouns. It may follow a linking verb (be, seem, appear, remain, stay) if it gives information about the subject. “Because of” is a description of an action.

“Due to” means “owing to”. “Owing” is an adjective, and an adjective is a descrption of nouns and pronouns. In a linking verb sentence, the subject (always a noun or pronoun) may be linked to a description following the verb, e.g. His success is entirely due to hard work. “Hard work” describes “success”.

“Because of” and “on account of” describe an action, usually answering the question why, e.g. I came back because of the rain. Why did I come back? Because of the rain.

In conversational English, “due to” and “because of” are interchangeable. However, when you need your most formal, most correct language, be careful with this pair. One easy solution is to avoid them entirely and simply add “because with a subject—verb pair, i.e. He is successful because he works hard and I came back because it was raining.

34. What kind of sentence is this: “...hasn’t it been a perfect spring afternoon?” (line 7) Why is it negative?

35. Which two words does Ella use instead of “very” to say she appreciates Bertie’s gift?

36. What kind of clause does Ella finish her brief speech with on line 15? What word is missing?

37. The English don’t leave out a relative pronoun when it is the subject of the following finite verb. Why does Saki do so in the aforementioned sentence?

38. What kind of sentence is the following: It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that a letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his home...? (line 59) Can you rephrase it so that the focus isn’t on when something happened but on what happened?

39. Find an example of a double comparative on page 3.

40. Saki mentions Blake’s Poems of Innocence. If you want to know about this English poet, painter and mystic, go to and

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